Story+1984-11-19+Kansas+City,+MO

‘‘Thank you.....now, here’s a song about blind faith....and its, uh, tragic consequences .....‘cause everybody´s waited for somebody who wasn´t ever coming back.....”
 * 19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Reason to Believe’**

‘‘Oh....thanks.....this is uh.....I guess this is a song about what happens when.....the ties that bind don’t bind no more and uh.....people start feeling isolated from their families and their friends....from their government.....”
 * 19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Nebraska’**

‘‘Thank you....this is a song, I guess, about, uh.....I wrote, I guess, in 1978.....it’s uh, I guess everybody has certain events that they, that they kind of mark their lives by, you know, things that.....like I can always remember I was nine years old and I remember my mother had Elvis Presley on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’....like, I ran out and got a guitar and....and started to take guitar lessons.....but they weren´t teaching no rock’n’ roll in 1959, not at the, not at the lessons (chuckles)....I remember, I remember I was 13 and I was in high school....when a.....when a kid came running across the field..... and told us that the, that the president, that John Kennedy had been shot.....and (?) I was living on this farm in New Jersey when a friend of mine called me up and told me that Elvis.....that Elvis Presley had died....and it was hard to understand how somebody who took away so many people’s loneliness....could end up feeling so lonely.....there´s all sorts of isolation that can kill you, whether it´s from the bottom or from the top....this is called ‘Bye Bye, Bye Bye Johnny’.....”
 * 19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Johnny Bye Bye’**

‘‘Oh....oh, let me see....let’s do something else (?) changing my mind....what key is ‘I’m Goin´Down’....oh yeah, oh yeah, alright....this is a song about the fleetingness of love.....how quickly it passes.....you know, you meet somebody, and everything they do is great and everything they do is beautiful and, and they come over and they’re all dressed up all the time and you’re always spending time in front of the mirror getting yourself all fixed up.....you know, and then about six months later you come back....(?) ‘How did I ever get stuck with you ?’....you know, at first it´s ‘What movie you wanna go see ?’, ‘Oh honey, I don´t care, any one you wanna see’....‘Do you wanna go out tonight ?’ ‘Oh honey, I don´t care, just as long as I am with you’....and you’re making love to ‘em all the time, three or four times a day....then you come back a little bit later .....and oh-oh (chuckles)....it’s like ‘Are you gonna make love to me tonight or are we gonna wait for the full moon again, you know ?’....anyway....what can you say ? (chuckles) I mean, like, what´s the first verse ?....”
 * 19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘I’m Goin’Down’**

‘‘Now, this song.....this is a song about....my personal life....I mean the kind of stuff that you're gonna read in the National Enquirer after I die....or if my girlfriend gets mad at me you’re gonna read it while I’m still alive.....(?) I gotta be good....but anyway, like when I was like, when I was about 15, I got interested in three things..... one, I was interested in playing pool ‘cause my father did....and then I was interested in the guitar....and then the third thing I was interested in was....you know....one Christmastime, one Christmastime my mother took me down to Sears and for 69.95, she got me one of these little pooltables.....then like we took it home on top of the car, we tied it to the top of the car and like you know, lugged it upstairs, I had it, I put it in my bedroom.....so like I used to bring my girlfriends over and I would tell my father, I’d say ‘Dad, we’re gonna, we’re gonna go up in my room and play pool for a little while’....but like, like my bedroom was right over the kitchen and he used to sit in the kitchen all the time and so, if he didn’t hear the guitar, and if he didn’t hear the pool balls knocking around, he had a broomstick that he used to bang on the ceiling..... ‘Stop that!’ (chuckles) you know, but I had it all figured out ‘cause I used to pull the pooltable like real over close to the bed, you know, and like every once in a while I’d like reach up and knock the pool balls around a little bit.....but anyway, as I matured.... I put away those childish things....gave up playing pool, and of the other two, the guitar is the only thing that I became profecient at.....but the third thing, I’m still looking for some volunteers who wanna practice, practice, practice.....you know you gotta practice all the time.....I’m gonna get it down (chuckles) this year some time (chuckles).....anyway, in the end this song is about how all things must pass.....all those wonderfully frustrated years (chuckles) and how in the end it ain’t nothing but glory days....’’
 * 19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Glory Days’**

‘‘Thank you, thanks.....I was staying out in California, I guess, a couple....a couple of winters ago and uh.....I wrote this song about the town.....the town that I grew up in..... and uh....I guess when I was a kid, I remember....I couldn´t wait to.....it was kind of a small town, real narrowminded, I couldn´t wait to get out of there.....and for a long time I did and I never went back and didn´t think much about what was going on back there....and uh....I guess, as you get older, you try to.....face up to the responsobilities of belonging somewhere and belonging to something.....whether it’s your town or your state or the country that you live in....well, this song, I guess, is a song about responsobility.....uh.....tonight when you go out into the lobby, you’re gonna see some folks from the Harvesters’ Food Network.....and what they are is they’re a foodbank, every, every year in this country about 20 % of the food that gets produced just gets wasted and thrown away....meanwhile in every city and every state, there’s people that are going hungry, that aren´t getting enough to eat, that are falling through the cracks in our social system and they got nowhere to go.....so these people try to get a hold of that food and get it to the people that need it and just one dollar, just one dollar enables them to get 30 dollars worth of food.....and.....they’ll be out there tonight, they can use your support, I know I’d appreciate it and they’d appreciate it.....and sometimes, sometimes these things feel like they´re happening a long ways away but they’re not, it’s happening right here in your hometown.....”
 * 19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘My Hometown’**

‘‘Thanks (chuckles) oh ! (chuckles)....thank you.....oh, this song, uh....this is a song about friendship, I guess.....about, uh, trying....trying to, uh, find something you can hold on to....and then trying to hold on to it (?)....that´s, I guess, the hardest thing to do ....anyway, this is....Phil, this is from Pat to you on your birthday, she called me up and wanted me to dedicate a song to you so, so happy birthday, Phil, and uh.....”
 * 19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘No Surrender’**

´´Take it easy now, boys....now, this is a song about the conflict .....between worldly things and spiritual health....between desires of the flesh....and spiritual ecstasy....now, where did this conflict begin ?.....well, it began in the beginning in a place called the Garden of Eden....now, the Garden of Eden was originally believed to have been located in Mesopotamia....but the latest theological studies have found that its actual location was ten miles south of Jersey City, off the New Jersey Turnpike.....now, understand, in the Garden of Eden, there were none of the accoutrements of modern living....I mean they didn´t have no Laudromats, they didn’t have no like, like little toasters you could put your Pop-Tarts in and then watch Johnny Carson on tv....you couldn’t go out on to the highway and buy a cheeseburger if you wanted one.....no, Sir ....in the Garden of Eden, there was no sin....there was no sex.....man lived in a state of innocence ....now, when it comes to no sex, I prefer the state of guilt that I live in .... but before the tour started I decided to make a spiritual journey to the location of the Garden of Eden to find out the answer to some of these pressing problems.....I went there and that spot is now occupied by Happy Dan´s Celebrity Used Car Lot....I walked in, the man said ´Son, you need a yellow convertible , a four-door DeVille with a Continental spare, wide chrome wheels, air-conditioning, automatic heat, with a full fold-out bed in your backseat, eight-track tapedeck , TV and a phone so you can speak to your baby when you’re driving all alone’...I said ‘I’ll take two’....I said ´But Dan, that´s not all I came for, I wanna know what´s the answer behind this temptation that I feel all the time, behind this conflict’....and he said ´Son, that´s easy because right here on these ten beautiful industrial zoned acres was the sweetest little paradise that man has ever seen.....now, in the Garden of Eden there were many wonderous things : there was a Tree of Life, there was a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, there was Adam, there was Eve, and she looked fine.....and when Adam kissed her, it was the first time that a man had ever kissed a woman ....and she had these long, pale legs and when Adam touched her, it was the first time that a man had ever touched a woman.... and then they lay down in the green grass.....and when Adam....well, it was the first time.... but something else was in the Garden of Eden, old Satan came slithering up on his belly and somehow he turned their love into a betrayal but right now, right here, tonight on this backlot, for 99.95 and no money down, I´ve got their getaway car....and if you´ve got the nerve to ride....I´ve got the keys....to the first....pink ....Cadillac...´´
 * 19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Pink Cadillac’**

‘‘When we, when we first met....we were going out riding all the time and laughing all the time....everything, everything we did was fun and funny and later on it seemed like the things.....that made her happy once just didn´t make her happy no more.....she started staying in a lot, not talking....and she started to hide my keys on me so I couldn´t go out at night.....and it got hard to make her understand....that when I took the car out and when I won....that it was the only time that I felt good about myself.... and that to have just one thing, one thing in your whole life that you do, that makes you feel proud of yourself.....I don’t think that´s too much for anybody to ask....is it ? ... (....)Well, that was the night that we left.....we don´t know where we´re going yet but I guess that’ll come in time.....and as for this place.....well, there’s a lot here that we’ll always remember....but we just gotta, we gotta keep searching......there´s gotta be something out there.....”
 * 19.11.84 Kansas City, MO, intro to ‘Racing in the Street’**

//Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi//